The
obsessive focus of the U.S. media on the upcoming election is
evocative of countries where life has the singular misfortune of
being dependent on politics. Elections in Serbia this spring were of
crucial import
for the country’s survival — let alone future — yet the
campaign there seemed almost subdued when compared to the anxiety
currently on display in America. In Bosnia, every election is a war
of words reminiscent of the country’s brutal sectarian
conflict; and with the government apparatus choking the very life out
of the remnants of productive economy, securing a public sinecure or
preventing an opponent from doing so is sometimes literally a matter
of life
and death.
Yet even this country, smaller than West Virginia and with the
estimated population of the city of Los Angeles, seems less frantic
about elections than the U.S.

It’s
bad enough when the mainstream media obsess about the vote, but when
it becomes impossible to watch a cat
video
or a viral
Korean pop hit
without 30 seconds of someone pontificating worriedly about Barack S.
Obama or W. Mitt Romney, things must be truly dire.

Whither
the Difference?

Looking
at the policies embraced by both the incumbent and the challenger,
however, an outside observer must wonder what all the fuss is about.
Obama and the Democrats have already demonstrated they have no
intention of dismantling
the Empire
to tackle the problems at home; rather, they want to double down on
both. Well, so
do
Romney and the Republicans that endorsed him. Ron Paul’s calls
to audit the Federal Reserve and the Pentagon were treated as heresy,
and the party bosses went so far as to change
the rules
in order to sideline and suppress Paul’s supporters.

Both
parties wish to tax and spend, both favor conflict and conquest, both
believe the current expanse of government power is good and
necessary. The only real difference is which special interest groups
will get better rations at the government trough for the next four
years, at everyone else’s expense. Whether it’s butter
and bombs, or bombs and butter — either way, the country ends up
broke, and a lot of people around the world end up dead. Or, in
Imperial parlance, “liberated” and enjoying the fruits of
democracy.

Relativistic
Logic

In
theory, democracy ought to be a simple mechanism of decision-making
by majority vote. However, it has been elevated to near-religious
status in the West, while losing much of its meaning in the process.
For example, the Russian elections this spring were ruled
“undemocratic” by the United States, the self-designated
arbiter of democracy. It did
not matter
than Russians could choose between more than two political options,
or that a greater percentage of them voted than Americans ever bother
to, or that every polling station was equipped with live-broadcasting
webcams to ensure fairness. The Empire gets
to decide
what democracy is. The massively
fraudulent
elections rigged by its clients in Serbia, for example, were deemed
perfectly fine.

You
see, it doesn’t matter what
is being done, only who
is doing it – and to whom.
Whatever produces the results desired by the Empire is good; anything
else is evil that must be eradicated. The ironic thing is that this
“logic” was first made mainstream by Karl Marx, while the
“who/whom” axiom was articulated
by V. I. Lenin.

Cold
War, Reheated

It
was the total mobilization of society in the Cold War with the
Marxist-Leninist Soviet Union that transformed
the American republic into today’s Atlantic Empire. When the
Soviet Union imploded in 1991, the exuberant imperialists embraced
what they considered the End
of History.
But while the Russians learned from their ordeal under Communism, the
West ended up embracing many of its tenets: political correctness,
“hate crimes,” the managerial state, politics as struggle
between not just classes but ever-fragmenting interest groups…
and of course, interventionism.

Czech
president Vaclav Klaus upbraided
the European Union for sliding into Communism, while Russia’s
Vladimir Putin warned
America
in no unclear terms about the perils of hegemonic dreams. Their words
fell on deaf ears.

Four
years ago, Washington chose to establish
the “Republic of Kosovo” on occupied Serbian territory,
over unequivocal Russian objections. In August that year, Russia
retaliated
by dealing a humiliating defeat to America’s client regime in
Georgia. One of the promises made by candidate Obama was a “reset”
of hostilities with Russia, and in March 2009, his Secretary of State
made a big show of presenting her Russian counterpart with a peace
offering: a red button, with the Russian word for “reset.”
Except the translation
was wrong,
and the word mean “overload” instead.

Subsequent
events suggest this was less of an embarrassing gaffe, and more of a
Freudian slip. Last year, Moscow was content to watch the “sandstorm”
revolutions in North Africa, and even voted in favor of a UN
resolution establishing a no-fly zone over Libya. But when NATO used
that as a fig leaf for full-scale invasion,
culminating in the disgusting dismemberment of Libya’s ruler as
Washington cheered,
the Russians were livid. Moscow has since done everything to prevent
a repeat of the Libyan scenario in Syria.

Empire’s
reaction was to rail against Russia’s “autocratic”
government, dispute the presidential and parliamentary elections, and
fund the opposition “activists” scraped from the margins
of Russian politics. In turn, Moscow passed
a law
patterned after the American FARA,
seeking to restrict influence of foreign-funded activism. But the
real escalation was yet to come.

Desecrating
for Democracy

One
of the “activist” groups funded
by American taxpayers has fought a war on Russian culture for
years.
They painted genitals on a drawbridge in St. Petersburg, held an orgy
at a Moscow museum, and sexually assaulted frozen food at a
supermarket, but none of these stunts so much as registered on the
radar of most Russians. So their handlers decided on another
approach, and set up a “punk rock band” of five masked
women, called “Pussy Riot.” In English, of course. Three
of the “PR” members then barged into Moscow’s
Cathedral
of Christ the Savior
and unleashed a profanity-laced tirade at the clergy and the
faithful.

The
spin machine then kicked in and painted the trio as brave activists
defying the “oppressive” Russian state and the Orthodox
Church, while claiming their stunt was a “punk prayer.”
The facts
of the case
were buried under the layers of propaganda, with even the
non-mainstream media filtering the case through the lens of their
preferred
narrative.

When
the three “rioters” were sentenced in mid-August, howls
of protest arose in the Western media sphere, with only a few noting
the immense hypocrisy
at hand. One astute observer even explained
that the Russophobic media storm made a harsh sentence all but
inevitable, and that the women were deliberately sacrificed for
Imperial purposes. To no avail.

The
Impenetrable Bubble

No
amount of logic, facts or arguments seems to make a dent in the media
narrative. It isn’t just the Imperial establishment that is
wrapped in a virtual world of
its own making;
the general public has been sucked
into
the virtual-reality matrix as well. Having internalized the
Marxist-Leninist pseudo-logic, neither the rulers nor the ruled are
capable of seeing themselves through the eyes of others, recognizing
a principle, or even remembering their own founding
values.
It is difficult, perhaps even impossible, to communicate with someone
so obsessed with perception management that they’ve lost the
ability to recognize reality entirely.

While
the American economy implodes and American society fragments into
ever more bitterly antagonistic sub-groups, Washingtonians live in a
pocket dimension of cushy government and contractor
jobs, courtesy of the fleeced taxpayers and the Fed’s
manipulation of money and debt. Whoever gets elected this November
will keep killing foreigners (and occasionally Americans), bailing
out the banksters and covering for cronies. But the electorate is
supposed to argue over abortion, gay marriage, medical care, and
“diversity.”

Whether
you vote for Kang
or Kodos,
the Empire is what you’ll get. Isn’t democracy grand?

How any American can believe these serial liars and murderers of either party other than Dr.Paul makes me shudder at our future of idiocy.
Those who control the media control the message,and their message is one of exclusivity,feudalism,racism and hatred of religion.,as they divide and conquer.

The Threeof Spades

Slightly off topic, but telling – I thought.
Today's installment of http://www.antiwar.com carries an article by Bishop Tutu, who explains why
he refused to meet Tony Blair, and by Eric Margolis – a notable Serbophobe – with an article on
importance of the Non Aligned Movement.

Bishop Tutu rants about Blair's consent to invade Iraq, keeping deftly mum about Blair being co-engineer of the bombing of Yugoslavia, which Tutu and Margolis, more than likely, both cheered and endorsed, or at least kept quite about in tacit endorsement.

Margolis for his part refers to Nkrumah, Castro, Nasser, Nehru and Sukarno as corner stones
of the Non Aligned Movement, in spite of the fact that President Tito was one of the co-founders, and likely was the chief idea man of the Movement's thrust and objectives. The very first NAM conference was held in in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in September of 1961.

Just as the facts and history of Yugoslavia, and what NATO/US/EU did and do to the country is swept under the carpet by the contributors to the shill portal that styles itself as antiwar, the other "movements" like p.u.s.s.y riot and the rebels – heavily armed by the West – of Syria dominate the front pages, so that Tutu and Margolis could straddle the two paths – appearance of criticising and the endorsement of those they pretend to criticise.

The Threeof Spades

Slightly off topic, but telling – I thought.
Today's installment of http://www.antiwar.com carries an article by Bishop Tutu, who explains why
he refused to meet Tony Blair, and by Eric Margolis – a notable Serbophobe – with an article on
importance of the Non Aligned Movement.

Bishop Tutu rants about Blair's consent to invade Iraq, keeping deftly mum about Blair being co-engineer of the bombing of Yugoslavia, which Tutu and Margolis, more than likely, both cheered and endorsed, or at least kept quite about in tacit endorsement.

Margolis for his part refers to Nkrumah, Castro, Nasser, Nehru and Sukarno as corner stones
of the Non Aligned Movement, in spite of the fact that President Tito was one of the co-founders, and likely was the chief idea man of the Movement's thrust and objectives. The very first NAM conference was held in in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in September of 1961.

Just as the facts and history of Yugoslavia, and what NATO/US/EU did and do to the country is swept under the carpet by the contributors to the shill portal that styles itself as antiwar, the other "movements" like p.u.s.s.y riot and the rebels – heavily armed by the West – of Syria dominate the front pages, so that Tutu and Margolis could straddle the two paths – appearance of criticising and the endorsement of those they pretend to criticise.

sherban

On American freedom i want to quote from Blum's "Empire report":here are more than 1,400 daily newspapers in the United States. Can you name a single paper, or a single TV network, that was unequivocally opposed to the American wars carried out against Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Panama, Grenada, and Vietnam? Or even opposed to any two of these wars? How about one? (I’ve been asking this question for years and so far I’ve gotten only one answer — Someone told me that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer had unequivocally opposed the invasion of Iraq. Can anyone verify that or name another case?)

In 1968, six years into the Vietnam war, the Boston Globe surveyed the editorial positions of 39 leading US papers concerning the war and found that “none advocated a pull-out”.7

Now, can you name an American daily newspaper or TV network that more or less gives any support to any US government ODE (Officially Designated Enemy)? Like Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Fidel or Raul Castro of Cuba, Bashar al-Assad of Syria, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, Rafael Correa of Ecuador (even before the current Assange matter), or Evo Morales of Bolivia? I mean that presents the ODE’s point of view in a reasonably fair manner most of the time? Or any ODE of the recent past like Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia, Moammar Gaddafi of Libya, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, or Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti?

Who in the mainstream media supports Hamas of Gaza? Or Hezbollah of Lebanon?

Who in the mainstream media is outspokenly critical of Israel’s domestic or foreign policies? And keeps his/her job?

Who in the mainstream media treats Julian Assange or Bradley Manning as the heroes they are?

And this same mainstream media tell us that Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, et al. do not have a real opposition media.

The ideology of the American mainstream media is the belief that they don’t have any ideology; they are instead what they call “objective”.

It’s been said that the political spectrum concerning US foreign policy in the America mainstream media “runs the gamut from A to B.”

Long before the Soviet Union broke up, a group of Russian writers touring the United States were astonished to find, after reading the newspapers and watching television, that almost all the opinions on all the vital issues were the same. “In our country,” said one of them, “to get that result we have a dictatorship. We imprison people. We tear out their fingernails. Here you have none of that. How do you do it? What’s the secret?”

WashingtonDC Goddamn

An IRS audit or being placed on the Homeland Security "Watch List" replaces the threat of fingernail pulling, but this still doesn't explain the mass cowardice of media outlets in the face of the ever-expanding state. Is there something in the water at journalism schools?

MetaCynic

If I may add to add to your insight, it should be mentioned that the broadcast media are licensed by the federal government to broadcast in the "public interest" over "publicly owned" airwaves. They understand what would happen if they didn't adhere to the party line on everything of importance.

Also the MSM are all major publicly traded corporations and as businesses and employers are subject to a thicket of regulations at all levels of government which grow ever more dense with each passing year. It has been observed that each of us is inadvertently guilty of three felonies a day. If true about our modest daily activities, then what of the complex lives of large business entities? A determined prosecutor can pin almost anything he desires on them. One can safely bet that some corporate paperwork somewhere is not in order and the observance of some obscure regulation has fallen thru the cracks. A gentle reminder once in a while about this peril is probably all it takes to keep the MSM in line.

And finally, with all the unrestricted government electronic surveillance going on, who doesn't have an embarrassing detail about his private life that he would rather the world not know about. How ironic that the intrusive, regulatory democracy which the progressive MSM has for generations championed, is probably now being used as a weapon to blackmail and silence critics of government.

Anna

Other things being fair in this post, it still reveals a propaganda-distorted fantasm of Russia and Soviet Russia, in particular. It is gross misrepresentation to portray us as barbarians, torturing and murdering people. This tale is probably inspired by your own recent history of some 1950s (Ku-Klux-Klan gangs).
Nothing of the kind has ever happened in Russia in the 19th, let alone 20th century, save brief periods in the 1917-1920 and 1990s, during the chaos our country has been plunged into after the west-induced revolutions.
And in general, I will not tire to repeat that the west dares not cast stones at other countries, as it is generally the most usual source, direct or implicit, of troubles around the globe.

mainstream

Mother Russia is true in all Serb hearts. I think you missed up about Stalin killing kukaks, gays, jews, others. Yes? A lot killed by Ustashe and Tito, plus Nazis, TOO.

Reader

Anna,

bear in mind that the orgy of anti-Russian hysteria had been the favorite Western (not particularly American until the post-FD Roosevelt era) bogeyman since at least the 1800s. It is well documented (but curiously obscured and ignored by the officially endorsed 'Russian histories' at the Ivy League's courses) that at the very height of anti-Soviet hysteria of the 1930s the Hearst-owned press was in bed so merrily – with Nazis, whose wicked distortions and all-out lies about the Soviet Union the multiplied so joyfully.

Not to mention the sinister ghost of WW2 revisionism that's been crawling the walls of western academe pretty much from 1945 on. It's not only the nazi-loving fringe sewer, it also the 'good liberals' so tirelessly reproducing the evil lies of equation of Soviets with Nazis (in other words, Russia/Soviet Union, is being so shamelessly slandered on daily basis regarding the 1939-1945, instead of being eternally thanked as the country that SAVED the world from the Nazi evil).

MichaelKenny

Every two weeks stir the pot. Malic comes across as an enemy of democracy and of the freedom of speech.

MichaelKenny

A lovely piece of American Empire propaganda disguised as criticism! "Obama and the Democrats have already demonstrated they have no intention of dismantling the Empire". "The Empire gets to decide what democracy is". And, of course, the Serbian elections were "fraudulent". And the cold war is being "reheated". And bla, bla, bla. Amusingly, the author, whoever he really is, implies that those who declared the Russian elections fraudulent were ssentially in the pay of US NGOs trying to undermine Russian democracy. I wouldn't disagree with him on that, but what does that tell us about those who declare the Serbian elections fraudulent? That is the weakness of "arguing" by merely trotting out pretext after pretext. That's why I keep saying every two weeks, stir the pot.

The Threeof Spades

I can't believe it. You are way down. So many people beat you to it. What happened? Your handlers forgot to alert you?

Doot

Nebojsa Malic is butthurt that Serbs weren't able to/allowed to create a greater Serbia.

He's arranged his entire world to prop up the flimsy notion that Serbs were horribly victimized (as innocent bystanders) by the entire world and that this was planned all along.

Everything he rights is in the service of this fantasy construct

Bianca

You may not know anything about Balkans, but strangely enough, in a short few sentences you managed to serve all the Western propaganda with great efficinency. There is nothing in the water I presume, but there are always incentives worth selling oneself for.

roque SANTA CRUZ

MK you sound like someone who every two weeks doesn't get enough PUSSY riot

conumishu

The victims are "weak" while the tormentors are full of… argument. Like yourself.

The self deluding blindness which discards the european widespread opposition to the EUropean division of the Empire (a sclerotic reenactment of the post napoleonic frozen fear, arrangement which sketched the first imperial cartel in history designed to oppose the multitudes on a global scale – then only European theatre mattered, now it's a bit more complicated) as insignificant surely advocates plenty for your insight.

You, whoever you (singular or plural) realy are, imply the Serbian elections weren't fraudulent because… because what? You offer no argumentation there, not even allusive. On the contrary, if someone forces a number of neurons to commit sepuku (neurons have their dignity) reaches only one conclusion: while the ngos in Russia, which you accept are on imperial payroll, weren't satisfied with the result and vociferated, the satisfying result in Serbia was met with silence… except for Mr. Malic's who must then represent the same kind of imperial meddling as the one observed in Russia. Mindboggling indeed.

Voicum

Stop using somebody else's name.you are not conumishu.you are nowhere near conumishu

conumishu

Thank you for a good laugh. Honestly, I really thank you, you're quite imaginative.

Bianca

He is right about elections being rigged. That is, Parliamentary elections. But then, something happened. The ruling "yellow" coallition, impressed by their own rigging, called an early Presidential elections. This time, whether the Yellow started to believe in their own propaganda, their President lost elections!
Now, Yellow are facing loss of power, and sources of funding. And the new President is faced with options: to get into the electoral theft as a priority business, or to move to consolidate power. Nowdays, there is no such thing as independent civil service or neutral military or security services. They are all choke full of party loyalists that will be capable of obstructing any change. So, what to tackle first? Take control over finances and get the party man out of Central Bank, consolidate key ministries. This is why Nikolic is in no hurry to tackle electoral fraud — plenty of time for that.

MetaCynic

Reading Malic's article, I suddenly had a very disturbing insight. I apologize in advance to anyone who is reading this on a full stomach, but it needs pointing out that the Obama administration has unleashed its very own Pussy Riot – Janet Napolitano and Hilary Clinton – desecrating everything that America and the rest of the world hold sacred.

Another Guest

Malic is usually fairly reasonable…but here he goes off on a wild tangent about how the current ideology of blatant imperial hypocrisy was somehow originated by Marx and Lenin…

One of the most asinine things I have read on this website…as if the struggle for dignity of the working man has anything to do with a bloodthirsty empire run by billionaires…

Suggestion for Malic…stick to what you know because you sure as heck do not know the first thing about the socialist movement…

Suvorov

Actually, cultural Marxism and its ideological successor Trotskyism (whether of neo-conservative or neo-liberal variety) have very little to do with protecting the workers' rights. At most, these ideologies have exploited the apparently negative aspects of the Industrial Revolution to undermine the very foundation of Western civilization.
And,yes, Lenin, as perhaps the greatest practitioner of Marxism, believed that the end always justifies the means. He introduced terminology such as "useful idiots" and predicted that the "bourgeoisie" would sell him the rope on which they later would be hanged.

Just as infoi today from Serbia Soros owned B92 TV station
==================================——————————–
In today broadcast the recording of the statements of protected witnesses of Serbian War crimes prosecition as a direct participant of organ harvesting in Kosovo, which was described in detail the process.
He began by training, through operations in makeshift hospitals to transportation to the airport in Tirana, where they were distributed to organs on the black market. Deputy war crimes prosecutor Bruno Vekaric explained away in the RTS that the witness, a former KLA member, trained in special camps in Albania.

"The trainings were carried out in northern Albania for various activities, among others, for medical
intervention. They told him there to train because it can happen that some of the commanders of the KLA killed at the front and we need to learn how to transplant a human body . He did say that it was a criminal act of removing the bodies, "noted the spokesman explained.
Vekaric explained that in this case is not about the "Yellow House", which is known to the public and to witness the "yellow house" mentioned only once.In his testimony, which the Serbian prosecution is crucial for the investigation of organ trafficking, a protected witness explained that the training was done for transplantation and indicated that they learned on a plastic doll that included parts of the body. '

Just as infoi today from Serbia Soros owned B92 TV station
==================================——————————–
In today broadcast the recording of the statements of protected witnesses of Serbian War crimes prosecition as a direct participant of organ harvesting in Kosovo, which was described in detail the process.
He began by training, through operations in makeshift hospitals to transportation to the airport in Tirana, where they were distributed to organs on the black market. Deputy war crimes prosecutor Bruno Vekaric explained away in the RTS that the witness, a former KLA member, trained in special camps in Albania.

"The trainings were carried out in northern Albania for various activities, among others, for medical
intervention. They told him there to train because it can happen that some of the commanders of the KLA killed at the front and we need to learn how to transplant a human body . He did say that it was a criminal act of removing the bodies, "noted the spokesman explained.
Vekaric explained that in this case is not about the "Yellow House", which is known to the public and to witness the "yellow house" mentioned only once.In his testimony, which the Serbian prosecution is crucial for the investigation of organ trafficking, a protected witness explained that the training was done for transplantation and indicated that they learned on a plastic doll that included parts of the body. '

You must see this. Serbian war crimes prosecutor Vekaric say Serbs have proof that Dr. Kouchner pulled hearts from Serb prisoners and UN covered up crimes. Go to RTS feed!

eric siverson

I think Kouchner did coverup crimes . I doubt Kouchner is a good enough heart surgeon to remove a heart . I would like to see the proof .

Reader

whose wicked distortions and all-out lies about the Soviet Union the multiplied so joyfully.

This should read:

whose wicked distortions and all-out lies about the Soviet Union they multiplied so joyfully.

mainstream

Russians killed lots of Nazis and won world war 2. But why they kills their people? I love Russia but think Stalin sicko ludak crazy man. Like Tito but way bigger crazy. He not even Russian, from trash south. You from trash south?

And today, the following statement after the violent protest in Cairo: "….Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy," the statement said. "We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others."

Where was this "respect for religious beliefs" when all the leaders of the West supported the porn-stars, turned political stars, as they desecrated churches in Russia? And how about the "abuse of universal right of free speech to hurt religious beliefs of others? That does not apply to Russia?

We have no priciples, and decide on the merits of thigs depending on the situation and what we percieve to be our interests at the moment. Such lack of integrity cannot be cleansed away by solemn statements of any kind.

eric siverson

Yes and the Russian girls had already done other porn crimes that they were not prosecuted for but were warned . These girls deserved a little jail time to cool them off a little

Sinisa

"… Last year, Moscow … even voted in favor of a UN resolution establishing a no-fly zone over Libya …"

A minor detail: Russia did not formally vote in favour, but “merely” abstained from the vote for the UN SC Resolution 1973 on 17 March 2011 (there were 10 votes for, none against, and 5 abstentions).

Which, of course, meant that Russia _de facto_ did approve that shameful resolution, so Mr. Malic's statement is quite correct in substance.

As for

"… But when NATO used that as a fig leaf for full-scale invasion, culminating in the disgusting dismemberment of Libya’s ruler as Washington cheered, the Russians were livid …"

that was definitely not so.

Medvedev & Co.'s chronic lack of principles notwithstanding, they were not so stupid as not to fully comprehend in advance exactly what was going to happen to Colonel Kadafi and the entire Libyan nation as a consequence. There apparently was an expectation on part of Russian leadership to get something “in return” from the U.S., which did not materialize, and _that_ would have made them livid. Finding out what and how specific that something was, might be a task for future historians.

Nebojsa Malic left his home in Bosnia after the Dayton Accords and currently resides in the United States. During the Bosnian War he had exposure to diplomatic and media affairs in Sarajevo. As a historian who specializes in international relations and the Balkans, Malic has written numerous essays on the Kosovo War, Bosnia, and Serbian politics. His exclusive column for Antiwar.com debuted in November 2000.